


What I Mean to Say

by chaineddove



Category: Angel Sanctuary
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-27
Updated: 2006-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaineddove/pseuds/chaineddove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raphael talked a lot back then, maybe just for the sake of hearing his own voice, or maybe to hide whatever insecurities he had under his perfect, virtuous veneer.  Later, when he stopped talking so much, Mikael found he missed the chatter, but he had had years to get used to it first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Mean to Say

**Author's Note:**

> Beware spoilers all the way through the last volume.

There had always been a lot of words between them, but what was really important never took more than a few.

“I don’t like him,” young Mikael had informed his brother in no uncertain terms, the first time he had met the Angel of Air. “He lectures too much.” Raphael talked a lot back then, maybe just for the sake of hearing his own voice, or maybe to hide whatever insecurities he had under his perfect, virtuous veneer. Later, when he stopped talking so much, Mikael found he missed the chatter, but he had had years to get used to it first. By then, he had words to fill up the silence — “What’s the matter, you pansy? You’re hiding in your room like a scared little girl!” — all of which was meant to say, _What’s wrong?_

Raphael had found his voice again eventually, and his lectures dragged on for hours, so Mikael told him that he didn’t understand a single pompous word and if he didn’t shut up _right now_ the entire building was going to go up in flames, by which he meant, _Never worry me like that again!_

***

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Mikael had wanted to know, looking with fascination at the tiny ruby stud in Raphael’s ear, back before his hair had grown to cover it. The small stone was like a drop of blood against his pale skin and seemed somehow incongruous.

Raphael brushed his hand against his earlobe and replied, “Yes, it hurts.” He grinned, because this was before he had decided he was too cool to grin. “You know Mikanou, it reminds me of you.”

He had left before Mikael could attempt to pound him into the ground for the intended slight and Mikael had never really known exactly what he had meant to say with those cryptic words, but later he had realized there was something liberating in pain, an experience that had ended with a giant snake tattoo running down his face and neck and Raphael scolding him mercilessly when the stupid thing got infected. Except by that point, Mikael understood that all of the extraneous words really boiled down to, _At least life with you is never boring._

***

But some things Raphael said had been true simply as they were. “You poor fool, Mikanou,” he had sighed, and stroked Mikael's head though his hand was surely burning. “As long as you deny your defeat, you will never win against him. If you’re so angry, you must become stronger.” He had stood there while Mikael cried bitter tears of defeat and fire, and healed his burns when he was finished.

“What about you?” Mikael had asked him later.

The healer had only smiled and stuck his hand in his pocket as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I’m fine,” he replied.

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“No,” he said, and Mikael knew the moment of truth was over.

That was the time he had decided that he might not hate Raphael after all, and before he quite knew it, they were friends, and he was making a habit of breaking down his walls and windows in new and creative ways, making entrances for himself, bringing demon heads as trophies and dragon scales as gifts, all of this to say, _I’m fine too; it doesn’t hurt at all._

***

“Maybe I should give up and bury him already,” he often said to Camael in his anger. “The tombstone could read, ‘Here lies Raphael, seducer of the stupid’.” He thought that Camael understood that this meant, _I’m impatient and a little scared he’ll never wake up at all,_ because no one ever offered to take him up on that plan.

After all, Raphael had told him, “Wait, I’m not done fighting with you yet,” which really meant, _Wait, I’m not done with you._

Full stop and no words for ten years.

***

So Mikael talked to him instead when there was no one there to hear. He talked over the sounds of thunder rumbling ominously in the sky — it thundered all day but it rarely rained, and there were whispers going around that this probably had something to do with Gabriel, or rather with her absence — but Mikael didn’t talk about Gabriel, or Mudou Sara or even her brother and Alexiel. Those were the things that had taken Raphael away from him in the first place and like a jealous child he kept them out of his one-sided conversations. “At least you can’t lecture me anymore,” he would say with superiority layered thick onto his voice. “Maybe I like you better this way. You can just keep sleeping forever. That’s a break from your righteousness for me and a whole flock of stupid females saved from you, you sick pervert.”

But that wasn’t what he meant to say. He baited Raphael, insulted him, berated him, lectured him, but all those thousands of words came down to the simple heart-felt plea to _WAKE UP!_ Except Raphael never did, and Mikael realized with a sinking feeling that Raphael had done the impossible and taught him, ever the impatient one, how to wait.

***

“God, I hate you,” he said, and that was true. After all, hadn’t he made a lifelong career of hating those he loved? Wasn’t that what had kept him in this underdeveloped body long after his brother had grown out of childish things? “I hate you so much and it hurts, damn it.” There were helpless tears on his cheeks because even though this was just like any other day, it was one more day to add to the string of identical, unchanging misery. There was something like a sigh from the immobile figure behind him. “What, you’ve still got nothing say? Pansy. Pervert. Pathetic idiot.”

There was a cough, and then stronger, “I _said_ , shut up, damn it.” The voice was still weak but strong enough to drive Mikael up off the floor to stare dumbly at his oldest friend, who was sitting groggily up as if he really had just been sleeping. It was somehow bizarre; he had rarely seen the immaculate Angel of Air like this, with his hair a tangle and his clothing rumpled. “You talk too much,” he added after clearing his throat, but the half-smile on his face implied something entirely different. “You’ve been talking my ear off for ten years straight, so I said, shut up, damn it.”

Before Mikael quite knew what he was doing, he had launched himself at Raphael and was holding on for dear life. “You shut up,” he whispered fiercely, which meant something altogether different.

By the way Raphael laughed hoarsely against his hair, he knew he had been understood.


End file.
